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MAGNO’S "THEORY OF MIND" OPENS MARCH 30 IN SINGAPORE
Internationally renowned abstract artist Carlo Magno opens Galerie Joaquin Singapore’s summer season with a special show titled "Theory of Mind". Slated to open Friday, March 30, at 7 pm. "Theory of Mind" features 18 artworks done by the artist especially for Singapore.
Magno is one of the country’s leading abstract artists and is one of the select few whose works have been chosen for inclusion in recent international auctions. This, in itself, is no mean feat, considering that only a handful of abstract art pieces from the Philippines are chosen for auction. Usually these are works from National Artists and masters such as Arturo Luz, Jose Joya, J. Elizalde Navarro, H.R. Ocampo, Fernando Zobel, Federico Aguilar Alcuaz, Nena Saguil, Pacita Abad and most recently Carlo Magno.
This will be Magno’s 23rd One-Man Exhibit. Magno started painting professionally a little over 29 years ago when he decided to forego a career in architecture and instead enrolled in Fine Arts at the Philippine Women’s University in 1978. This is the same university that has produced many distinguished Filipino artists including Raul Lebajo, Ibarra de La Rosa, Prudencio Lamarozza, Pandy Aviado and Raul Isidro among others.
Galerie Joaquin is located at The Regent Hotel, #1 Cuscaden Road, Ground Floor, Unit 3 Singapore 249715. Tel. No. (65) 6725 3113. Visit www.galeriejoaquin.com.
Magno found himself so engrossed in the world of art that he started organizing several group shows and even headed his own art group called LIKARLA, a group composed of realist painters. Several awards came next including the Grand Prize at the Hispanidad Art Center as well as the First Prize in a YMCA sponsored art competition for his painting titled "Bayanihan".
Magno recalls being inspired by Vermeer’s art. He found himself painting interiors of old houses and windows. Other influences were Richard Estes and Winslow Homer, who inspired him to do landscapes. From the early eighties Magno’s work never failed to elicit praises for its distinct creative imagery and thoughtful clarity. Through the years his subjects have been diverse including ancestral homes, churchyards, interiors, vistas, and cathedral altars and bell towers. The works were usually highlighted by day to day objects that when transformed by the artist’s highly creative brush became symbols of nostalgia and romanticism such as a batibot chair, a fountain in a churchyard, a cart or even a pail.
The works undeniably left warm emotions to his countless viewers and collectors and looking back, one can only agree with an art critic who in the eighties wrote that this is because Magno’s works successfully capture "a time, a day, a season, an emotion or an era." They are a "mosaic of recollection and retrospectives." Other critics and peers acknowledging his technique referred to him as a "master of light". He was already at his peak in painting representational subjects when something happened.
In the year 2003 however, or before his 15th solo exhibition, Magno embarked on a completely new direction. He decided to explore the world of abstract art. That show was aptly titled "Transformation" and in that show he exhibited works characterized by his rich exuberant colors highlighted by the variety of textures and techniques he had accumulated through the years. Magno himself saw the leap from figurative or representational art into the world of abstraction as a logical and highly exciting development. "I find it very exciting because abstract art is so free flowing", he notes.
Since the time that Magno made the difficult yet epochal transition from figuration to abstraction he has had seven sold-out solo exhibitions underscoring his phenomenal success in abstraction. His oeuvre has been fast evolving and he has taken elements of gestural abstractionism from noted Japanese artists and abstract expressionism from European abstractionists and infused his own spiritual convictions and intellectual directions.
What Magno actually did was seek new ways to depict reality that he felt traditional figurative and representational methods were no longer capable of capturing. He was no longer content with showing objects as they are and wanted to look into the internal and hidden relationships between things as well as the conceptual and spiritual dimensions in the painting.
The reception has been no less than awesome. His works now adorn many top corporate boardrooms and offices in Makati and the Madrigal and Ortigas Centers as well as in many newly built modern houses at upscale villages like Green Meadows, Corinthian Gardens, Valle Verde as well as leading condominiums among others.
Seven successful and sold-out one-man abstract shows later, Magno is now ready to embark on his twenty-third one-man show. This has even proven to be a greater challenge as it now means he is addressing an international following, Singapore being a major financial and cultural center of Asia and the regional headquarters for many Southeast Asian organizations.
Some works are the 36" x 30" "Blaze of Glory VIII", the 30" x 30" "Harmonics II", the 36" x 30" "Multitude VI", the 30" x 54" "Periphery of Thoughts" and the 36" x 30" "Rising II". |
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